Haiti, 1789 to 1806

In the richest of the French colonies,
St. Domingue, whites
had been fathering the children of slave women, and by the
time of the French Revolution some sons of mixed race
had become owners of the colony's sugar
plantations, and others of mixed race were at least free
men. The people of mixed race on St. Domingue numbered around 30,000, while
the colony's slaves numbered
around 500,000, about four-fifths of them field hands.
In the mountains were small villages of descendants of slave
runaways who lived from subsistence farming, maintained their
African culture, occasionally raided a plantation, and banded
together to resist planter attempts to re-enslave them. The
whites in the colony numbered around 20,000. In addition to
the plantation owners and their families, these included shopkeepers,
merchants, doctors, craftsmen, wives, teachers, sailors and
soldiers.

Following France's proclamation of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789,
a delegation of men of mixed race, called gens de couleur, arrived
in Paris to ask whether this included them, and they won assurance that
it did. Opposing recognition of equality of the gens de couleur were
the lower class whites (petits blancs) lower at any rate than
the highly born more wealthy whites (grands blancs). The lower
class whites wanted to hold onto the ranking that race had offered them, but also
they feared that if those of mixed race were considered equal soon
the blacks would also want to be equal and free.

A leader of the gens de couleur, Vincent Oge, brought back from
Paris the message that all taxpayers were to be allowed to vote in elections
for the colonial legislature. He petitioned the colony's governor for recognition
of this, but failed. White vigilantes tried to disarm a small army of his
supporters and a small war erupted. By early 1791 the whites in St. Domingue
crushed the small army of gens de couleur. Twenty-two of an army
of about 300, including Oge and a French priest who had joined his group,
were hanged. And slaves saw Oge die proclaiming liberty.

Some slaves decided to fight for their freedom. In August 1791,
plantations on the plain around Cape
François in the north of the colony burned, and
around a thousand whites were slaughtered. Paris sent soldiers to the colony
to restore order, and in early 1792 the French government decreed that free gens de couleur were to have full citizenship. The French authorities wanted unity between the whites and the gens de couleur for the sake
of containing rebellion by the blacks. In Paris there was also concern about
the illegal trade that plantation owners were conducting with US merchants
and fear that the plantation owners would try to break with France and tie
themselves commercially with the United States.

After war broke out in early 1793 between France and other European powers, people on St. Domingue anticipated the arrival
of France's enemy, the British. In August 1793 a former slave and leader of a coalition of gens de couleur
and slaves, Toussaint L'Ouverture, decreed all slaves emancipated,
and many slaves joined his rebel army. It was the first society-wide emancipation
of slavery in history. The British landed on September 19 in the
south of the colony. The white plantation owners welcomed them, expecting
the British to reinstate slavery, make St. Domingue a British colony and
strip the gens de couleur of their citizenship.

By early June 1794, the British in St. Domingue had moved northward, taking
Port-au-Prince and other towns.
Toussaint L'Ouverture fought a guerrilla war while allied with the French
against the British.

By 1801, British forces had withdrawn from St. Domingue. Toussaint L'Ouverture
led the dominant force that remained. The French Revolution had moderated. On July 26 1801, Toussaint L'Ouverture published a constitution that recognized Roman Catholicism as the official religion. The constitution proclaimed loyalty and
subservience to France. According to the constitution, St. Domingue's plantations were to be worked voluntarily by free people, Toussaint L'Ouverture
was to be governor-general for life and all men from 14 to 55 years of age
were to be in the state militia.

Toussaint L'Ouverture had not received approval
of his constitution from France's new head of state, First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. On February
2, 1802, a French army of 12,000 sent by Napoleon arrived at Cape François,
and Toussaint L'Ouverture's military retreated to the interior to fight
another guerilla war. On June 7, Toussaint received a message from a French
General, Brunet, to meet for negotiations. Brunet assured Toussaint that
he would be perfectly safe with the French, whom he said were gentlemen.
When Toussaint showed up for the meeting, the French took and shipped
him to France to a cold and damp prison near the Swiss border, where Toussaint
withered and died on April 7, 1803.

While fighting in St. Domingue, the French were
decimated by yellow fever. The former slaves were now led by a former lieutenant
of Toussaint: Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a man without Toussaint's moderation
concerning bloodshed. Dessalines commanded the heights above Port-Au-Prince
and gave French troops eight days to evacuate the city on condition that they
leave the city's fortifications intact. Some civilian whites fled with the French,
taking with them what wealth they could carry. To the north, at the Battle of Vertières,
near Cape François, battalions of blacks defeated a French force, and the rest
of Napoleon's forces on St. Domingue withdrew. Perhaps as many as
27,000 of the civilians who fled with them went to eastern Cuba, where they
were to take up coffee and sugar planting.

On January 1, 1804, Dessalines proclaimed independence and renamed the
land Haiti. He and close associates swore to die rather than submit again
to French control, and they pledged support for each other. Dessalines took
the title of Governor-General for Life. He removed the white from the red,
white and blue of the French flag, leaving red and blue
for Haiti's flag. He began purging Haiti of white people as vengeance
against France and to purify Haiti of French taint – with the exception
of a few he saw as having been kind to blacks: medical doctors, a
few useful merchants and an American. The butchering of whites lasted from
January to mid-March. Dessalines proclaimed an end to his vengeance, knowing
some of the French had survived. And after they emerged from hiding he had
them killed.

Later, after Dessalines learned that Napoleon had been crowned emperor (on December 2, 1804), Dessalines arranged
for his own coronation as Emperor Jacques the First. Dessalines tried to extend
his control to the eastern side of the island, against Spaniards and French in what today is the Dominican Republic.
When his troops reached the city of
Santo Domingo, French ships arrived, and his Haitians retreated, killing
and raping their way back to their side of the island.

In May 1805, shortly after returning to Haiti,
Dessalines put his signature on Haiti's first constitution (although he and
his close associates could not read). According to the constitution, all power rested with him, the emperor,
none with any independent judiciary or body of legislators. The nation's colors were changed from red and blue to red and black. The gens de couleur
were henceforth not recognized: all were to be known as noirs (blacks).
Dessalines considered the gens de couleur as bastard offspring –
while he surrounded himself with mistresses of various shades of skin.

By 1806, Dessalines' generals were looking upon him as a ridiculous figure,
and Dessalines regarded his generals with suspicion. Dessalines made
his home and headquarters in Haiti's north. In the south, where the gens
de couleur were concentrated, people hated and feared him. Dessalines
announced his plans to march with troops into the south, and the south exploded
in rebellion. Dessalines' generals prepared a trap for him along the way.
His horse was shot from under him. Pinned to the ground, his head was blown
off and his body hacked to pieces with machetes.

General Henri Christophe called an election for an assembly that would
write a new constitution. Christophe was chosen leader in the north. Another
general, Alexander Pétion, a gen de couleur, became the leader in
the south. The two halves split into hostile camps, and military skirmishes
followed.